BACKSTORY
Every hero has an origin story. This is mine.
John Dietz
Platform Engineering Paladin
CEO of Konstruct, Director Enterprise Cloud Solutions at Civo
ORIGIN STORY
My entrepreneurial journey started at 22 when I bootstrapped Integrity Test Solutions, a software and services company I ran for 19 years. That experience taught me how to build things that last and how to solve real problems for real customers. Along the way, I worked with major organizations like USA Today, American Systems, and Northrop Grumman. At Gannett, I became a Kubernetes champion in 2017 and played an instrumental role in their public cloud migration. But I kept seeing the same pattern: teams spending 18 months just to get a production-ready Kubernetes platform. That frustration became the spark for Kubefirst. Together with co-founder Jared Edwards, we built the platform during nights and weekends, ran a year-long stealth enterprise pilot, and then open-sourced it to the world.
THE MISSION
My mission is to democratize platform engineering. No team should spend 18 months setting up infrastructure that could be ready in minutes. We reduce Kubernetes adoption from months to a single command. Kubefirst gives teams a production-ready Kubernetes platform with GitOps, CI/CD, secrets management, and all the best practices baked in. And we build infrastructure that does not lock users in - our ejection patterns mean you can always take full ownership of what we provision for you.
CORE VALUES
Open Source First
The best infrastructure is built in the open, by and for the community.
Developer Experience Matters
If it is not easy to use, it will not get used. Period.
Ship Fast, Learn Faster
The best way to learn is to put things in front of users and iterate.
Community Over Competition
We rise by lifting others. Knowledge should be shared freely.
INTERESTS & EXPERTISE
CONNECT
Ready to embark on a quest together? Reach out through any of these channels.